Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Chuo University, 742-1 Higashinakano, Hachioji, Tokyo, 192-0393, Japan.
Medical Institute of Developmental Disabilities Research, Showa University, Kitakarasuyama 6-11-11, Setagaya, Tokyo, 157-8577, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 1;9(1):15866. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-52329-9.
A core symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is restricted and repetitive behavior, characterized partly by insistence on sameness and excessively focused interest. This behavior has often been interpreted as a manifestation of anxiety and fear triggered by resistance to change. The implicit assumption underlying this interpretation is that perception per se (such as the judgment of sameness and changes in sensory stimuli) is not different between ASD and typically developed (TD) individuals, but that only the emotional response to the same amount of perceived change is. However, few studies have examined how individuals with ASD actually perceive a repeated presentation of the same sensory stimulus. To explore this issue, we conducted a listening test to compare perception of a repeated sound pattern, namely a spoken word, between ASD and TD groups. Prolonged listening to a repeated word without a pause may induce perceptual changes, which is known as the verbal transformation effect. We discovered that individuals with ASD tend to perceive more drastic changes or differences for the same repeated auditory pattern. This suggests that such variable perception incites individuals with ASD to persist for sameness.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的核心症状是受限和重复行为，其部分特征是坚持一致性和过度专注的兴趣。这种行为常常被解释为对变化的抵制所引发的焦虑和恐惧的表现。这种解释的隐含假设是，感知本身（例如对相同性的判断和感官刺激的变化）在 ASD 和典型发育（TD）个体之间没有不同，而只是对相同感知变化量的情绪反应不同。然而，很少有研究探讨 ASD 个体实际上如何感知相同感官刺激的重复呈现。为了探讨这个问题，我们进行了听力测试，比较了 ASD 和 TD 组对重复声音模式（即口语单词）的感知。长时间听一个没有停顿的重复单词可能会引起感知变化，这被称为言语转换效应。我们发现，ASD 个体往往会对相同的重复听觉模式感知到更剧烈的变化或差异。这表明这种可变感知促使 ASD 个体坚持一致性。
